A Message from Board of Education President Ron Mitchell

A Message from Board of Education President Ron Mitchell

Posted on 01/19/2018

Dear Jeffco Families,

At our last Jeffco Board of Education meeting in January, the Board made two important decisions. First, we established and funded the Jeffco Innovation Acceleration Fund. This fund will be used to support innovative ideas coming from schools and individual educators. Funds will be used to provide start-up costs for creative ideas from within our organizations that will align with the Generations Vision. First-round applications will be due on February 9. The intent of this fund is to leverage the Entrepreneurial Spirit of our schools and educators.

Our second important decision was to fund classroom additions at three middle schools. Classrooms will be added to Creighton, Ken Caryl, and Summit Ridge Middle Schools. These additions will create the space needed to complete the 6-8 grade middle school transition. Once completed, almost all our elementary schools and middle schools will be on the K-5/6-8 grade configuration with the exception being schools currently using the K-8 and K-6/7-12 grade structure. Our Board believes this structure will result in expanded educational opportunities for middle school students, solve overcrowding issues, remove some temporary classrooms and, in the future, provide space for Early Childhood Education expansion.

Decisions like these are always difficult to make because anytime we are allocating resources, we know there are many competing needs in our district. We know for example that we need to make a very significant investment to update and maintain facilities across Jeffco. As our school buildings age, we must find ways to allocate resources to provide all students a quality learning environment, regardless of the age of the building they attend. Our Board will continue to seek ways to address these facility inequities as we move this excellent school district forward.

Sincerely,
Ron Mitchell

Jeffco Public Schools has been providing educational excellence for more than 60 years. Our mission is to provide a quality education that prepares all children for a successful future.